It is amply clear by now
that Ariel Sharon remains faithful to his old virulent views about the
Palestinian question, the ultimate root- cause of instability and insecurity
in the Middle East.

Needless to say, these views are
manifestly racist and unmistakably pugnacious, and can be compared, with
little exaggeration, with Hitler's approach toward Jews.

Indeed, Sharon's behavior
since he was elected Prime Minister of Israel on 6 February indicates that
he is not the "changed man" Zionist propagandists and apologists
have claimed he has become.

Far from being a rehabilitated man,
Sharon actually seems intent on pursuing a policy of saber-rattling, bellicosity
and venomous incitement all over the region, all for the purpose of making
the Zionist state both the police and master of the Middle East.

We all saw recently how the "hero"
of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres ordered his occupation army to impose
a hermetic siege on Palestinian population centers, effectively reducing
the West Bank into as many as 45 crowded enclosures which some human rights
organizations described as "concentration camps minus the gas chambers."

That siege, the sheer barbarity of
which transcends reality, is still intact, and its nefarious psychological
and other impacts on men, women and children are endured round-the-clock.

The Palestinians are still
the main target of Sharon's venom, but other countries and peoples in the
region are also on his agenda.

These include Egypt,
the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and also
Jordan, which the certified war criminal still views as the "ultimate
Palestinian homeland," in addition to Syria, Iraq and Iran.

According to press reports, Sharon
spent the bulk of his maiden visit to the Washington D.C. as Prime Minister
in fanning the flames of hatred and incitement against the Arab states
and Iran.

He reportedly urged the US to scale
down arms supplies to Egypt, arguing that the most populous Arab country
shouldn't be allowed to achieve even a distant military parity with the
Zionist regime.

Moreover, Sharon had the audacity
to complain that Egyptian President Husni Mubarak was not doing what
the Zionist premier said he should be doing, namely hectoring
and cajoling Yasser Arafat to surrender to Israel by accepting her
"generous" offer in the West Bank.

Sharon's anti-Egyptian remarks ought
to be taken very seriously as they are indicative of his intention to see
Israel achieve unchallenged military and strategic supremacy in the region.

His ominous intentions to that effect
were further accentuated by his repeated insinuations about
Iran's alleged endeavors to acquire "weapons of mass destruction," as if
only the Zionist regime has that right.

Of course, he didn't utter a single
word about Israel's huge arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,
which, he would have us believe, is for peaceful purposes!!

In short, Sharon is trying rabidly
and frantically to use the American sword to subjugate and subdue
Arab and Muslim peoples in the Middle East in order to enable Israel to
impose its hegemony all over the region. In this, he is imitating the Biblical
figure Esther who incited the king of Persia to kill the enemies of the
Jews in his kingdom.

In light, it is imperative that the
principal Arab and Islamic states in the region make it abundantly
clear to this impetuous war criminal that his threats would definitely
boomerang on him.

More to the point, Arab states, especially
in the Gulf region, should seriously demonstrate to the United States that
her relations and interests in the region would suffer irreparably if the
US continued to back Zionist aggression and bellicosity.

More importantly, the rise of Sharon
to power in the Zionist regime and the growing drift among Zionists toward
religious and fascist extremism should serve as an appropriate occasion
for contemplating some form of strategic cooperation between the Arab states
and Iran.

Indeed, this cooperation is becoming
a pressing necessity as never before.